Maturity and platforms

This page describes the current status of Beans: what works, what is still being proven, and which platforms are supported.

Where Beans stands

Beans is a production preview on the 1.0 stabilization line. Each part of that phrase means something specific:

The language contract is frozen at 1.0. The syntax and semantics you write against are settled. Code you write now is meant to keep working.
The latest compiler release is 0.1.18. The language is 1.0; the tool that implements it is still on its way to a matching release number.
The runtime ABI is 6.

It is a preview, not a finished 1.0. It is usable, but the full 1.0 release still has open work, listed below.

The list below is what works today:

A self-hosted compiler. beansc is written in Beans. Its stage 2 and stage 3 builds are byte-identical, the standard proof that a compiler reproduces itself.
A full front end. Whole-program loader and resolver, a generic checker, typed custom annotations and reflection, private/static/singleton/abstract object features, a high-level IR (HIR), and a checked mid-level IR (MIR) with ownership verification.
A native backend. MIR compiled to LLVM for debug, release, and LTO builds, with automatic reference counting plus a cycle collector.
A reference interpreter with behavior identical to the native backend.
Concurrency. OS threads, typed atomics, mutexes, channels, structured async/await, and readiness waits.
Package management. Canonical package identity, a hashed beans.lock, locked and offline builds, and a Git cache.
Full C interop. Imports, exports, headers, bindgen, records, unions, globals, thread-local storage, errno, and callbacks.
Editor and debugger support. A semantic LSP and an interpreter DAP.
Systems access. Files, memory mappings, processes, sockets, DNS, polling, signals, shared memory, dynamic libraries, SIMD, and intrinsics. Every capability on the project’s 100-point systems-access scorecard is implemented.
Typed encoding. Generated JSON and XML decoders write nested structs, lists, and options directly, with compile-time mapping checks and XML namespace URI matching.

Thirty targets are registered, and most ship as prebuilt release packages.

Beans is not calling itself production-ready 1.0 yet. These items are open:

When those are done, the preview becomes a full release.

These three platforms are the ones the 1.0 release must build and pass on, and they are the most tested:

These build and are shipped, but are marked preview rather than fully proven:

For how the language, compiler, and ABI version numbers relate, see Versioning. To try the preview, install Beans.